


Prelude

by Yessica



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [9]
Category: Underhero (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:07:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yessica/pseuds/Yessica
Summary: After the end of the cycle, there is only time. (Febuwhump day 10 - "I'm sorry, I didn't know.")
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138808
Kudos: 3





	Prelude

The cycle has ended.

It has started before and it will start again, you know it will.

Part of you is worried about what that means. For your friends, who you try to reach but can't. What has torn you away from them is more powerful and incomprehensible than the end of the very world, the end of everything. But you have stopped it, ended it, consumed it.

And now it's just you and her and nothing.

"I'm sorry," she says. The words don't fit her, soft and fragile. The antithesis of what she is. "I didn't know. I mean, if I had known this is where we'd end up, I'd never have made you do any of that adventure stuff in the first place."

You know that isn't true. Somebody had to do what you did and play the hero. Somebody had to start the journey. Maybe nobody would have taken the road you did, but somebody would have had to take that first step.

You had killed the person who did.

And you remember how scared you had been, with fear in your throat and doubt in your heart. Carrying a shield too heavy and a burden of similar weight. And wondering if maybe – maybe – you had been doing the right thing all along.

Or if maybe the hero had been doing it wrong.

You miss them. If you close your eyes the silence engulfs you and their voices carry, calling out to you. It's impossible to tell if they are real or imagined, but you'd like to think they're there. Crying out to you, trying to reach you, trying to bring you back.

All you want to do is go back.

"You saved them, you know." She tells you this as you're walking through a dessert of purple, covered with skies of black. The stars are prisms and fall to the ground in shards. "You did well, kid. You did better than I ever thought you would." Remorse has colored every syllable.

There is guilt in her words.

You think about Stitches, who turned out to be pulled apart and sewn back together of guilt too. Regret stuffed inside, keeping together the awful thing he had become, or was forced into becoming.

Despite everything, you hoped there could be forgiveness there, for him.

You wonder where your friends are, under the sun or the clouds or where light reaches them through leafy canopies of green. The world you travel through is cold and bleak. You're happy they're not here, you're happy it's only you suffering this time.

But you miss them even more.

"Do you forgive me?" Elizabeth asks. It is the first time she has asked this. Maybe she was too scared to do so before. "After all the trouble I caused..."

Before answering you remember all the people you met along the way. The hurt you caused right from the start, and the problems you couldn't fix. You remember the solutions you offered and the hearts you lifted as much as the ones you failed to save.

Maybe you should be honest and say you never were angry with her. Not even once.

Instead, you nod and resolve even harder to make it back to the others, make it back home.

And then everything can be forgiven in earnest.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Febuwhump, requested by Anonymous. Come throw me some requests on [Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


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